Chasing Dragons E-Book

Tami Veldura

• Herausgeber: Tami Veldura
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Gwen is a jumper, able to move spaceships through giant wyrmholes left in space. Her captain is obsessed with finding a space wyrm. But jumping is hard work and Gwen's captain pushes her to the brink.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chasing Dragons

About The Author

Copyright

Chasing Dragons

By Tami Veldura

Pulling the space ship through a wyrmhole always felt to Gwen like falling feet first into an ocean. First she dipped her fingers into the water of a new star system, swirled them around a bit to test the temperature, and when she had a good feeling about it, she jumped. Space warped inside out to accommodate her, the practical physics trying their best to resolve a divide-by-zero, and in the span of a breath, Gwen pulled a new ocean of stars up over her head.

"They're not here, dammit. Go again. Now!" Captain Griffith struck his hand on the forward console. Several screens flickered. He stood facing away from Gwen, his attention fixed on the external cameras. Tension coiled in his neck and hunched his shoulders. He'd been standing or pacing for Gwen's entire six-hour shift, demanding she jump them through system after system.

Gwen took a breath and blew it out roughly. She closed her eyes to focus on the water of space around her rather than the radiating anger from her captain. Gwen dragged her mental fingers across the surface of the ocean, seeking an anomaly. Humanity wasn't the only thing out here, and the bigger things left traces of themselves behind.

There! Gwen's mental touch found another fault in space. This one bigger, more stable than the previous. That meant it was fresh. The creature who had torn through reality here did so recently. Gwen couldn't create these tears that connected one spot to another, but she could discover them with a little effort. Gwen dipped her fingers into the the water on the other side, found a good grip, and dropped herself—and the ship—through the hole.

That was the trick, wasn't it, bringing the ship, and all of its crew, with her. Gwen had discovered her ability to travel the wyrmholes in the usual way: she teleported herself down a hallway, or across the mess hall, folding space and time to a single point that she could step through with natural confidence. It took years of careful training to bring someone with her, and even more advanced practice to carry an entire ship.

Each jump through space splashed over her head, a wave of disorientation, a chill, the urge to hold her breath until she surfaced a powerful one. And each jump left something of herself behind, just as the creatures who traveled before her left the holes torn in space.

Gwen's knees buckled. She put her hand on the hull but exhaustion dragged her to the floor. Six hours of jumping had leached the strength from her muscles and stolen the breath from her lungs.

"Go again," Griffith demanded. "They were just here. We're catching up."

The engineer—Charlie—stood from her chair. "Captain, she needs to rest."

"We'll rest when we've caught them." He turned to pin his single artificial eye on Gwen, the lens turning as it zoomed closer. "Go again."

Gwen let her head fall to the cold floor and leaned heavily against the hull wall. With another breath she reached into the ocean.

"You're pushing too hard. This is dangerous," Charlie said.

"You were informed of the risks. So was she."

Gwen heard the argument at a distance, garbled under the waves. It was easy to dismiss when the cold ocean of space demanded so much attention. Gwen tried to keep herself near the surface of the water—it was easier to pull back that way—but she was too tired to hold herself up. Rather than search the surface for the next tear, she fell into the depths.